Following bans in the European Union, Australia, Canada, as well as in North Dakota, Florida and Louisiana, a U.S. senator is asking Congress to enact a nationwide ban on certain bath salt products that he claims are being widely and unsafely used as narcotics for their "meth-like high". Senator Charles Schumer of New York has introduced a bill to outlaw two synthetic drugs, mephedrone and methylenedioxypyrovalerone, or MDPV, which have become popular among drug users as legal alternatives to cocaine and methamphetamine.

According to Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials, the bath salt drugs are available in many retail locations, and are sold in both powder and tablet form. They are then consumed by drug users through injection, smoking, snorting, and occasionally with an atomizer. Users experience a high similar to that of meth and cocaine, containing energy, euphoria, hallucinations, and other more negative effects such as insomnia and becoming quick to anger.

The DEA, which is investigating the synthetic drug products, recently issued an alert, stating that the bath salt products were "readily available at convenience stores, discount tobacco outlets, gas stations, pawn shops, tattoo parlors, truck stops, and other locations".

According to Schumer, the fact that the alleged drugs are so widely available motivated him to author and introduce the bill. "These so-called bath salts contain ingredients that are nothing more than legally sanctioned narcotics, and they are being sold cheaply to all comers, with no questions asked, at store counters around the country," Senator Schumer said. "The longer we wait to ban the substance, the greater risk we put our kids in."

Source: Reuters, "Senator moves to ban drug sold as bath salts", Jonathan Allen, 31 January 2011